Stunning Visual of Gun Deaths In America and Suicidal Thoughts

Presented with little comment, but first I must note that the data visualization is brilliant. I encourage you to click through to FiveThirtyEight before reading on.

A huge proportion of decisions to actually commit suicide are decided upon a few minutes before the actual attempt. Those who choose guns die at a much, much, much higher rate. In addition, they can’t change their minds, whereas many other suicide attempts are recoverable for a while. If this is even a possibility for you – if you go extremely dark places when drunk, or by yourself, or whatever – maybe consider taking proactive steps when you’re in a good place and make it difficult for you to load your gun when you’re in that pit. I’d ask you to get rid of the gun, but those of you who I know would simply never do that. Instead, for love’s sake, give yourself those crucial few extra minutes to change your mind.